Disabled and elderly people often encounter some difficulty in taking a bath, more specifically in climbing into and out of the bath. Physical difficulties may frequently require a disabled or elderly person to be assisted by a helper and, if that person is not readily available, the disabled or elderly person cannot take a bath or may be able to do so only at the cost of such severe physical exertion that it is almost impossible to bathe.
One form of such a bath aid unit or bath lift involves a support structure which rests on the bottom of the bath and a seat which is displaceable between a raised and a lowered position relative to the part of the bath aid unit which is supported on the bath. The seat is displaceable between its raised and lowered positions by a drive arrangement, for example a manually operable drive or a powered actuating unit comprising an electric motor which can be energised to raise the seat in the bath. The actuating unit may include a rigid screw rod member which bears against the bottom of the bath in such a way that, when the electric motor is powered, the actuating unit lifts the seat by pressing downwardly on the rod member. However, as the rod member is rigid, when the seat is lowered into the downward position where it is adjacent the bottom of the bath, the rigid rod member projects upwardly beyond the top of the seat by a considerable distance and can thus constitute a serious obstacle to free movement of the person sitting on the seat. For example, when the person using the bath aid unit is sitting on the seat, in its lowered position, that person cannot lie back in the water in the bath or indeed cannot readily wash his or her back because of the presence of the rigid rod.